The story of establishing a prisoner of war camp at Island Farm barracks, Bridgend, and of the remarkable short-lived escape of 70 German prisoners, many being influential officers, from there in 1945. 21 black-and-white photographs.

Hanes sefydlu gwersyll carcharorion ym maracs Island Farm, Pen-y- bont ar Ogwr, ac am ddihangfa nodedig - am gyfnod byr - 70 carcharor Almaenig, nifer ohonynt yn swyddogion dylanwadol, oddi yno yn 1945. 21 ffotograff du-a-gwyn.

A book that combines local history with the Second World War looks set to be a sure winner for Seren. The History shelves of our local libraries are dominated by both topics; for examination classes in our schools it would appear that little other than Nazi Germany is covered at all these days. Before the introduction of the dreadful National Curriculum, an imaginative history teacher in Bridgend might have devised a local history project for her students to investigate the activities at nearby Island Farm during the Second World War. The results, if successful, would have been along the lines of this book: a fascinating and under-reported local story illuminating a broader narrative of a war that engulfed the world.

In 2002 the site of Island Farm was the subject of a controversial planning application that sought to demolish wartime camp buildings, unused for a generation, in order to construct a leisure complex for the Welsh Rugby Union. The planning application was unsuccessful, but the collection of huts on the site was almost entirely demolished the following year. Only Hut 9 remained; it had been granted listed building status, along with its tunnel, as the site of the biggest mass break-out of the war, when some 70 German POWs escaped into the surrounding countryside on 10 March 1945. A museum at the site is to be developed and this book will surely have visitors flocking to it.

Island Farm, as Peter Phillips's sure-footed narrative reveals, was first developed as an armaments factory as Britain's belated rearmament programme kicked in under Chamberlain at the end of the 1930s. Indeed, it was destined to become the largest bomb-making factory in Europe, employing Valleys girls drawn from a great arc that encompassed the entire South Wales Coalfield. Some 22 Nissen Huts, intended as dormitory accommodation for over 2,000 girls, went largely unused; Valleys girls preferred to return home at the end of their shifts. Following the belated American entry into the war, a use was found for the huts as accommodation for GIs from the US 28th Infantry Division en route to the Normandy beaches. The proximity of GIs to Valleys girls resulted in some 350 marriages in the space of six months, giving a new twist to the concept of the Special Relationship. Following D-Day, Island Farm became a POW camp for German soldiers captured on the western front. Finally it was to hold senior Wehrmacht and SS figures prior to the opening of the Nuremberg Trails.

Hence the intriguing black-and-white photo, from one of eight pages of plates, of Hitler's highest ranking Field Marshall, Gerd von Rundstedt, in full military dress, wheeling his own luggage along the platform of Bridgend Station. With the detention of uncharged suspects by the US in Guantanamo Bay now in its third year, it is salutary to read how scrupulous the British authorities were in following the letter of the Geneva Convention. Indeed, with the intensification of rationing following the American withdrawal of aid to Britain after a socialist government was elected in 1945, it seems that food was better for the German officers inside the camp than it was for most local families outside.

The aftermath of the break-out reads like Monty Python, Dad's Army and Blackadder rolled into one. Whereas the amateurish camp guards were overawed psychologically and physiologically by the Prussian officers, allowing lax conditions to prevail that enabled two escape tunnels to be dug, most of the escapees were successfully rounded up by the local Home Guard without blood being spilt. The village bobby apprehended two SS officers in Llanharan. An abiding image from this captivating tale is the biscuit tin containing the swastika map pins, one for each escapee, that Superintendent Bill May used to indicate where each German was captured on his wall map in Bridgend Police Station. In the course of the round-up operation, only one death by shooting occurred: the murder of Lily Griffiths of Aberdare for which crime Howard Grossley, a Canadian soldier, was hanged in Cardiff Gaol on 5 September 1945. Peter Phillips raises a number of questions about the circumstances of this conviction, noting that a document relating to Howard Grossley at the Public Record Office remains closed until 2034, by which time this fascinating story should have been re-issued many times over.

David Barnes

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatad Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.